


Almost Every Door

by cedarbranch



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, The Mountain Goats, we're all here for monsterfuckers... but what about monsterLOVERS.....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23700415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cedarbranch/pseuds/cedarbranch
Summary: “Here,” says Gerry. He tosses his phone over to Michael. “If you don’t like my music, pick something you do like. But I’m not turning it off.”
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael
Comments: 28
Kudos: 237





	Almost Every Door

**Author's Note:**

> title from [almost every door](https://youtu.be/OGcIh-Vaof8) by the mountain goats, a song which never fails to make me sad about michael shelley

Gerry is good at a lot of things. He can track down almost anyone, hold his own in a fight, and stitch a wound in five minutes flat. With a lifestyle like his, those are the really important things. 

Basic chores, though, are a different story. 

Gerry doesn’t do the dishes much. Half the time he forgets, and the other half he’s so exhausted that he can’t bring himself to get up and do it. Then, of course, on the rare occasions when his memory and energy are both cooperating, he just doesn’t want to. He can’t give in today, though. The mess in his kitchen is getting out of hand. 

Gerry places his bluetooth speaker on top of the microwave, sets his favorite metal playlist as loud as it’ll go, and gets to work.

Having music is the only thing that makes cleaning bearable. It’s dreadfully boring: rinsing bowls, putting them in the washer, scrubbing the grease out of the saucepan, always the same repetitive motions. Rinse, wash, repeat. But having the shred of guitars to zone out to helps. It almost makes it fun—more about the music, something he actually enjoys, instead of the monotony of self-care. He whispers along to some of the lyrics as he drops a plate into the dish rack. The breakdown is coming up soon—he pauses to air-guitar on a fork for a moment. 

“What are you doing?” asks a voice.

Gerry drops the fork. It hits the ground with a clatter. “Jesus Christ, Michael,” he sighs. “Do you have to do that every time?”

Michael laughs. Gerry ignores him, bending down to scoop up the fork. It’s splattered water across the floor. Gerry scrubs his sock over it and goes back to work. 

“I can hear your music through the door,” Michael informs him. 

“You’re welcome,” Gerry says absentmindedly. 

“It’s rather annoying.”

“Is it now,” Gerry deadpans. “If only you could do something to fix that, like… oh, I don’t know—move the door?” 

“I don’t want to,” says Michael.

“Yeah, I thought you’d say that.” Gerry finally turns around to look at him, leaning back against the kitchen counter. Michael does look a bit annoyed—it’s hard to tell with him, but Gerry’s tuned into the little tics by now. Sometimes his hair will curl a little quicker and tighter than usual, like a cat’s tail switching back and forth when it’s angry. 

“Here,” says Gerry. He tosses his phone over to Michael. “If you don’t like my music, pick something you do like. But I’m not turning it off.” He’s got to get these damn dishes done, and there’s no way he’s doing them without something to keep his brain busy. 

Michael stares down at the phone for a second, then starts scrolling. Gerry tries his best to hide a smile. He can’t deny it, he is a little curious to see what Michael picks. What would a creature of the Spiral even listen to? Something psychedelic, he bets. 

A bright tune starts to play from the speaker, but it’s cut off as quickly as it begins. Another song replaces it. Michael makes a face, and a new one begins. After thirty seconds of this, Gerry is half-convinced that Michael will never make a decision, and it’s the rapid switches themselves that he enjoys—but then the quiet strum of a guitar comes from Gerry’s speaker. Michael stares at the phone for a minute before finally setting it down. 

The song sounds familiar. Gerry wracks his brains trying to place it. He isn’t able to until the vocals come in— _cower in the corner, try hard to disappear._ That’s John Darnielle’s voice for sure.

Gerry bursts out laughing. “Holy shit,” he says. “You like The Mountain Goats? Seriously?”

“I don’t listen to music,” Michael says, twisting a strand of hair idly around one finger. “But this one seemed… tolerable.”

_The moment’s never going to come, when anyone can say that the coast is clear._

Okay. That one was unexpected. Gerry likes The Mountain Goats, it’s just—they’re a two in the morning silent breakdown kind of band. The songs you listen to when it hurts to breathe. He would’ve expected something more lighthearted from Michael, given his typical vehement avoidance of any display of emotion. 

_Maybe turn around, find a wall to break your fist on._

Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe Michael just picked this song at random from one of Gerry’s playlists. But he isn’t talking, or making comments about the song. It looks like he’s actually listening to it, just staring into the distance and letting it wash over him. 

If the choice wasn’t random, Gerry won’t say a thing. 

_Almost every door’s an exit, just not this one._

Gerry returns to his dish-washing. “Picked this one just ‘cause it’s about doors, did you?” he teases. 

Michael is quiet. Gerry pretends to focus on scraping a bit of hardened rice off a plate, but he keeps a close eye on Michael. He’s wearing an odd expression—all of his expressions are odd, but this is different. There’s definitely _something_ going on in his head—when he moves, there’s a bit of an echo to it, a moment where Gerry’s vision doubles and he can see the places Michael was before. But it’s not frantic, not the abstract mess of neon angles Michael sometimes reduces to when he’s really lost control. It’s subtle, which is something Gerry has never seen in Michael before. 

“Do you want to help me with this?” Gerry asks.

“No,” says Michael. 

Gerry didn’t really expect anything else. Besides, he wouldn’t really trust Michael not to break anything with those hands. “Right,” he says, and turns the sink back on.

The rush of the tap almost drowns out the crackling distortion of Michael’s presence, but not quite. Gerry can feel him there. It’s a faint confusion, a sixth sense of wrongness that itches at the back of his brain. He’s so used to it by now that it almost feels comfortable. 

Running dishes under the water, he almost misses it when Michael starts to hum along. 

The syllables gradually turn to words. _”Hours before each door, like a sinner lost in prayer,”_ Michael murmurs, slightly off-pitch. _”Always one more hallway at the bottom of the stair.”_

Gerry shouldn’t say it—he should just let Michael be. This moment is too fragile for him to shatter.

But sue him, he’s curious.

“Do you know this song?” he asks. _Did you?_ he doesn’t ask. _Did you like it, before whatever happened to you?_

“No,” Michael says distantly. “I just know the story.”

That’s… not an answer, but it is something. He shakes his hands over the sink, droplets falling from his fingertips, and goes to dry them on a towel. It brings him closer to Michael, close enough to reach out and take his hand, press it to his lips. 

Michael looks at him, his eyes a spiraling abyss of color. “What’s that for?” he asks.

“Your good music taste?” Gerry suggests.

Michael’s long fingers close around Gerry’s. He sighs and lets his head fall onto Gerry’s shoulder, the movement liquid. 

_Almost every door’s an exit, just not this one._

He stays there as the music fades out into a soft refrain of guitars and clarinets. Gerry runs his fingers through Michael’s hair, sifting through the flowing curls that don’t quite move the way they should. Gerry doesn’t mind. As unstable and physics-breaking as Michael’s appearance may be, he’s beautiful. 

Gerry just wishes he knew what to do with him. 

The song ends, and Michael doesn’t move. 

“How ‘bout I pick the next song?” Gerry says gently. “We could take turns?”

“You’ll just pick something loud,” Michael says, his voice muffled. 

“No I won’t. I could play more Mountain Goats, if you’d like that.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Okay then. Not loud, and not Mountain Goats. I can work with that.” Gerry retrieves his phone from the counter. There are a lot of artists saved to his Spotify—The Used, Opeth, Slipknot, Pierce the Veil. None particularly soft, but if he can just find the right song…

Ah, fuck it. He puts on _Smother Me_ by The Used. It’s sentimental, but if Michael gets The Mountain Goats, he can get a love song. They’re experimenting with new things today. 

Gerry puts his phone down and holds his hand out to Michael. 

“What are you doing?” Michael asks, a hint of amusement beginning to creep into his voice. That’s more like it. 

“Obviously, I’m asking you to dance,” says Gerry.

That gets Michael laughing. He doesn’t stop, even as Gerry takes him by the hand and draws him in close. “What’s so funny?” Gerry asks, smiling. “I’m that bad of a dancer?”

Michael wraps his hands around Gerry’s waist. His fingers are long enough to curl nearly all the way across Gerry’s back. That sensation used to send shivers down his spine, but now, he eases into it—it’s nice, to be held so completely, so securely. “Hm. Not the dancing, then,” Gerry says. “Let me guess again. You’ve never danced in a kitchen before?”

Michael hums. “I don’t believe I have, no.”

“But that’s not what’s funny? Hm. You’ve got me stumped. Guess you’ll have to explain yourself.”

“I don’t have to do anything,” says Michael, a smile curling at his lips.

“Except kiss me,” Gerry says. 

Michael is not the first to lean in, but he does kiss Gerry back. 

It’s not the first time they’ve done this, not by a long shot—but somehow, this feels different. It’s a quietly self-contained feeling, a comfortable place to settle. It doesn’t send spirals exploding behind Gerry’s eyes like it so often does. Instead, his mind melts into something pleasantly hazy, and the warmth of Michael against him is all that he can feel. 

“You can be very stupid,” Michael whispers. 

“Aw,” says Gerry. 

“That was not a compliment.”

“It was, though, wasn’t it?” Gerry presses his lips to what might be Michael’s cheek. He’s not going to claim to know Michael—Michael wouldn’t take that well—but he can read between the lines well enough. He knows their entire relationship is a gamble. It’s foolish to trust Michael, and downright stupid to love him, but here Gerry is, slow dancing with him all the same. He can never _really_ know that Michael reciprocates his cautious feelings, or if he’s even capable of doing so. He can’t ever know for sure. 

But he can read between the lines.


End file.
